Improvement in the manufacture of shoe-binding



UNITED STATES PATE T OFFICE.

M. H. MERRIAM AND E. L. NORTON, OF OHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT lN THE MANUFACTURE OF SHOE-BINDING. a

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 55,329, dated June 5, 1866.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that we, M. H. MERRIAM and E. L. NORTON, both of Oharlestown, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improvement in the Manufacture of Shoe-Binding; and we do hereby declare that the following, taken in connection with the drawings which accompany and form part of this specification, is adescription of our invention sufficient to enable those skilled in the art to practice it.

This invention relates to a series of operations or to a process practiced by us in the manufacture of leather shoe-binding, by which the quality of the product is improved while its cost is diminished.

In order to give a better appreciation of the nature of our invention, we will first describe the process upon which our present invention is an improvement. Said process is as follows:

After the skins from which the binding is to be made have been got into a dry flat condi tion by stretching and drying, and when the irregular projections of the skins have been removed, the main or body part thereof is divided into narrow strips of nearly the exact width of the finished binding, and the ends thereof are then beveled or scarfed. and are -united by suitable cement and pressure, alter which the then long strip is cut or split to a uniform thickness. Owing to the ease with which these narrow strips are deflected laterally, it is difficult to join them exactly in line, and the resulting product is very apt to be sinuous, which depreciates the appearance and the real and market value of the product. If to remove this sinuosity the long and narrow strip is trimmed on both edges the percent-age of waste bears too great a. proportion to the material utilized.

Our invention consists in a series of operations or a method of procedure as follows: The skins, in the condition before described,

in which they are cut into narrow strips, are out into strips wide enough to form several narrow strips each. In practice we find strips of about two inches in width to be'the best average width, from which ultimately the narrow binding is formed. Then these wide strips are scarfed or beveled at their opposite ends and are cemented together, as described for the narrow strips. The continuous wide ribbon or strip is then submitted to the action of suitable sets of rotary shears, and by them is subdivided into several narrow strips of the desired finished width, after which each narrow strip is out or splitto a thickness. Owing to the greater resistance offered by the wide strips to lateral deflection over what thenarrow strips afford, the joining of the wide strips properly in line is more easily and accurately accomplished than is the joining of the narrow strips under the old process, so that to correct any sidewise sinuosity in the continuous wide strip does not involve the waste of so much material as it does to make a similar correc tion for each narrow strip put together in the old way, as before described, and the waste involved is reduced to a minimum. Besides the saving of waste in stock out from the sides of the strips, much time is saved in the scarfing or beveling and in the cementing of the ends, these operations taking no more time for each wide strip than is occupied for each narrowstrip in the old process.

76 clain1 The improvement in the manufacture of shoe-binding, substantially as described.

In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands this 24th day of November, A. D. 1865.

M. H. MERRIAM. E. L. NORTON.

Witnesses J. B. CROSBY, F. GOULD. 

